Opinions

Sister site Apple Matters is an equal opportunity employer. Not only do they post gems by thoughtful writers like Chris Howard the site also posts articles by the obviously mentally challenged Chris Seibold. In this weeks article (written with crayon and smiley faces over the i’s I bet) Chris opines that at some point in the future all your data will come over the iPhone. Chris goes on and on, references landlines and such and it might make some sense to someone but not to me. Really, they need to keep that guy away from the chips of lead paint.
Read the article

Chris Howard over at our sister site Apple Matters has published an interesting piece. From the article:

The iPhone is a remarkably good computer. Don’t buy it because it’s a phone, or even a smartphone; buy it because it’s a computer.

Read the whole thing here

It’s called the iPhone right? Tell that to C.K. Sample III who recently had to reboot his iPhone just to make a phone call. It reminds me of a piece I recently wrote for Apple Matters, Is the iPhone the OS 9 of phones?.

Let’s be honest here, how many of you have to to reboot or reset your iPhone just to make a....call. I have a couple of times and it is a frustrating experience. Suddenly all those very cool applications, the iPod, GPS, and all the goodness that makes the iPhone the iPhone doesn’t matter. You just want to make a call!

Which brings me to Part 2 of my What the iPhone Needs, a phone mode only. In this mode all other functions would disappear, Mail, Twitterific, the iPod, everything leaving just the Phone application running. When you have a busy phone day and you need to make sure you can send and receive calls use the Phone mode.

Sure it may piss off some people who want to make out the iPhone is perfect. But… more...

So it’s been two days since 2.0.1 was made available and I would like to know how it’s been running on your iPhone?

Did this update actually fix any bugs, or are we all getting suckered into believing that the update has made things snappier?

For me, things are much snappier thanks to this update and as of today, I cannot report any crashes whatsoever.

Contacts load noticeably quicker, I can drag an app icon across multiple pages in one motion, rather than having to drag it, drop it, pick it up again and drag it over to next page, and repeat. That was annoying.

I’m not sure about anyone else, but I have noticed much improved reception on my phone. The screen rotation in Safari appears to be smoother. I haven’t noticed anything else, but I would like to know what you have experienced so far?

The blogosphere was buzzing yesterday as thousands of 3G iPhone owners struggled to activate them in store and at home. As every new iPhone user on the East Coast began activating their phones all at 8:00 AM EST, the AT&T computers started to lag.

I was the 4th person in line at my store and the AT&T employee who helped me out began activating my phone at 8:04 AM. Even then, there was a lag. I can’t even imagine how bad it got a few hours later.

It could be argued that there is no way around this problem. Apple has no choice but to release these phones at the same time everywhere. And AT&T has no choice but to force activation on the spot. And with iPhone releases like this only coming once a year (at best), there is no financial rationale for AT&T to boost infrastructure to their activation network.

But what seems to be the worst part of this process is Apple’s decision to sell and activate these phones in the Apple Store. I went into 2 Apple stores in the area as late at wednesday and every one I spoke… more...

Edge? Cellphone and Wi-Fi positioning? Blah. We want 3G. Faster download times and more accurate positioning are only two of many features consumers hope will be in the next generation iPhone. If my favorite rumor comes true, the new phone should retail for $199 (unlikely).

With a brand new crisp design and the reality distortion field in full effect, will users line up around the corner for the new phone? Is the hype equal to what it was the same time last year? I think not; the 3G iPhone is no revolution as the original iPhone was. I am no analyst, and Apple does have that “Wow” factor. We shall see.

Can you resist the reality distorter that is Apple? Will you be lining up for the new phone?

It’s out. Great. The iPhone SDK from Apple is finally available for developers big and small to take a crack at creating something revolutionary for the iPhone. A recent report says over 100,000 people have downloaded the SDK. But as this post in PC Mag explains, smaller developers may not be as anxious to start coding.

smaller developers seem to be a lot queasier because of the mysterious restrictions on iPhone development, that Apple is refusing to comment about. (When even Sun can’t get a straight answer, you know there’s a communication problem.)

Do you think that Apple’s secretive nature to the approval and distribution process will discourage developers from cranking out brilliant apps? It would be really disappointing for a small shop to spend time and resources on a product only to get shot down by Apple and prevented from distributing their application. At least in other markets they can succeed and fail on their idea and execution alone, not the subjective policing by Apple.

What do you think?

[PC Mag]

I was reading an article on iPodHacks.com about how the iPhone is changing the industry and I thought about it myself and I realized the author, Blake, is absolutely right. The industry is changing.

Blake analyized how the industry is changing for the casual user, enterprise, and the gamers. With iPhone software 2.0 and the recently released SDK, Blake notes that casual and enterprise users will have a lot to look forward to.

Me, being the casual user, absolutely look forward to the release. I think this will be one of the most significant updates for the iPhone. I am a bit taken back however in Apple’s decission to make the iPhone a gaming device as well. It is an excellent move seeing as how gaming is such a huge industry, but I would have never expected gaming to be one of their main focuses.

In the article, Blake points out something you may not have known. I did not realize the power of the iPhone until I found this chart illustrating the differences in the iPhone, PSP, and a DS:

Sony PSP
Processor: MIPS CPU @ 222… more...

What could possibly be going through AT&T’s head with the recent announcement that Apple will allow VoIP on the iPhone?

Here’s what I think (In a handy personal email format from Randall Stephenson to Steve Jobs)

Dear Steve,

What’s going on? I thought I would drop you a note and express to you my feelings over your announcement last week about allowing VoIP for the iPhone. You know what I’m talking about? When someone asked you the question, “What will happen if someone does a VOIP app?” and you replied with, “We will only stop VOIP over cell networks, but not WiFi.”

I just want to say, thanks for adhering to our agreement and protecting us from basically going out of business but couldn’t you have elaborated a little more about why calls over the cell network are better? Like how, without giving customers VoIP we can charge an arm and a leg for international calls?

Steve, just hold the wolves back for a few more years so that we have time to develop our own VoIP service for the iPhone. Ok? Because if you don’t, I might… more...

In case you haven’t heard, the BBC just released their popular iPlayer web portal for the iPhone platform. I decided to point my iPhone browser to the iPlayer to check things out. Here are my first impression:

1. It works
Life just keeps getting better and better, guys. We’re happy to report that the iPlayer provides a great portal to access some of the network’s most popular content with an intuitive interface. There really is no comparison for this release.

2. Content is limited
Aye, here’s the rub. Much like what happened with YouTube when the iPhone was first shipped, not all programs are available through iPlayer yet, as they are probably being re-encoded to the Apple codec. BBC says 100% of the content will be available soon. Plus, most programs can only be played in the U.K.

3. The radio (podcast directory) is the best part
Sure, watching videos is great, but we already have that with YouTube! The iPlayer radio opens up a whole new content area to iPhone users. Unfortunately, the iPlayer doesn’t work over EDGE, so you won’t exactly be able… more...